Amber Ramsey Fantini tells the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff Wednesday August 3, 2016 at Roosevelt Elementary School.

Sarah Schneider
/ 90.5 WESA

Preschooler Marleny Roasario sat cross-legged on a multi-colored carpet Wednesday, scrunching her face at a blue and purple snaggle-toothed troll.

Performing artist Amber Ramsey Fantini laughed, bobbing her puppets at the class. "Turn around," she told the girl. "Show your teacher and all the other kids."

The half-hour-long storytelling session at Roosevelt Intermediate School in Carrick is part of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's StoryCorner series, which invites artists like Fantini into pre-K Pittsburgh Public classrooms to tell tales through music, dance, drama and visuals.

Sarah Greenbaum, the trust's early childhood program coordinator, said integrating art into education supports developmental growth and "really allows children of different learning styles to grasp onto concepts in a different way.”

“Some children would learn best by reading the story," she said. "Others would be best by moving along the (road) that the character takes.”

Now in its eighth year, StoryCorner runs year-round at libraries, community centers and schools pairing common children's stories with different educational topics. In the Liberian folktale "Head, Body, Legs," children celebrate human anatomy. With "Too Many Spiders," they explorecreative movement and counting.

In Carrick, Fantini asked youngsters to stretch high and low as they practiced speaking and problem solving skills in an action-oriented retelling of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." High, middle and low pitches represented the three goats, and preschoolers used their voices as responses to musical cues.

They were also taught different facial expressions before the story began, Greenbaum said, and Fantini recalled them as the story went on.

“They love everything, from the character voices that they get to make, the songs that the teaching artists create, the movement,” Greenbaum said. “They’re not just hearing a story about a character, but they actually get to become the character.”

Ideally, students then transition those skills outside the classroom, she said.

The Remake Learning series is a collaboration of 90.5 WESA, WQED, Pittsburgh Magazine and NEXTpittsburgh.

Ellen Gozion of Pittsburgh folk band The Early Mays saw her first crankie at a music festival in West Virginia.

“As soon as I saw them, I fell in love with them and I decided I would make one,” she said. “I knew that there had been scattered crankie (festivals) throughout the country, so I immediately thought we’re going to do that in Pittsburgh.”

It took several years, but the first ever Pittsburgh Crankie Fest is this weekend at the Wilkins School Community Center in Regent Square.

Hillary Clinton has chosen Tim Kaine to be her vice presidential running mate. The Virginia senator has been an elected official — including mayor, governor and senator — for over 20 years and was once the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was also on President Obama's shortlist of running mates in 2008.